What is driving change

The Payments UK report identified six factors that are driving change in payments:

Customers now expect to be able to shop online or with their mobile devices, and be able to make fast, convenient payments at checkout.

Smartphone technology has introduced new ways to pay, giving customers access to an ever-expanding range of services through ‘apps’ and the ability to pay for anything from taxis to hotels with secure mobile banking.

Greater competition and collaborative developments are being driven by new technologies such as the introduction of contactless technology on cards, Faster Payments or Paym, as well as new fintech entrants in the market.

Improvements to traditional payment mechanisms, such as cheque imaging and polymer bank notes, make paying easier for customers who prefer to do it in this way.

Regulation and legislation continue to define the framework within which payment service providers and consumers interact, exchange data and make payments.

There are now over 2,500 payment service providers in the UK, many of which are new entrants offering new payment products and services. As the UK has become the home of the fintech community the number of payment service providers in the coming years could still grow.

Saxo in their report MISSING THE OPPORTUNITYidentified another important factor: The new payment ecosystem is now underpinned by ‘utilities’ which “provide the banking and payments sector with the unseen but necessary power and energy to provide the best possible foundation for delivering a great customer experience worldwide for the end client.”

Don’t forget the basics when choosing the new payment systems

A huge wide range of payment systems developments is occurring in all sectors from C2C, to C2B, to B2B, etc, which corporate treasury departments are having to manage. One, that is particularly important, is the emergence of major multi-channel payment providers such as Adyen who believe that the “The ultimate payments experience is invisible”, i.e. Frictionless, across the myriad of payment systems open to corporate treasuries world-wide today. This is where the action is in payment systems for the large corporations as they try and centralise their payments and collections, and, at the same time, accept more payment systems as their customers, particularly the younger ones, use the new and emerging payment channels.

In collections, a problem that has always been difficult and is STILL proving difficult to overcome is the identification of not only WHO the payment is from, but also WHAT is it for?

CTMfile take: Two ‘go/no go’ questions when reviewing new payment systems are, “How can we identify WHO the payment is from, and also WHAT is it for?”